Cargoes, Embargoes and Emissaries: The Commercial and Political Interaction of England and the German Hanse, 1450-1510 (review)

Reviews 171 libraries. More importantly, these are all major articles in thefield,precious indeed for their impeccable references to primary sources and Forey's own, oft-stated opinion on the controversy or misinformation surrounding many of these questions. Anne Gilmour-Bryson Department of History University of Melbourne Fudge, John D., Cargoes, Embargoes and Emissaries: The Commercial and Political Interaction of England and the German Hanse, 1450-1510, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1995; cloth; pp. xx, 265; R.R.P. US$60.00. While the general outlines of the history of the Hanse in the period in which it began its terminal decline are well known, the details of the bitter political in-fighting by which the main players endeavoured to maintain the upper hand have been less explored. Dr Fudge, through a detailed study of the largely unpublished formal archives of the states and territories involved, demonstrates the intricacies of the agreements entered into and the endemic problems which pirates of all nations created for such agreements. Raiding and looting in retaliation for perceived or actual wrongs, with or without a 'letter of marque', was commonplace, and monarchs and rulers without adequate permanent navies had little option but to employ as temporary gamekeepers those who were all too readily by nature poachers. The capture of the vital Hanseatic saltfleetin 1449 by English privateers was only the most spectacular of such encounters. Dr Fudge illuminates the internal dissensions which weakened the Hanse, particularly the hostility between Danzig and Lubeck, as well as Cologne's and Frankfurt's ambiguous position, which provided the English government with both problems and opportunities. As each English monarch sought to curb Hanseatic power while exploiting the potential of the London steelyard, the patterns of trade and trading routes slowly shifted. The breakdown of internal Hanseatic cohesion disrupted the boycotts imposed by the central diet so that Cologne maintained links to London at the expense of the other towns. The third party in all this wrangling was the L o w Countries, where too there was much disagreement between the different states, each of which had their own agreements with the English and the Hanse. Restrictions at Bruges 172 Reviews created opportunities for Antwerp; limitation or embargoes on trade in one state saw shippers moving en masse to another. In some places the English could trade cloth, in others only wool. For the merchants of England and the Hanse, keeping abreast of the current state of politics as it affected their trading goods was a critical element of commercial success. Even in years when warfare did not cut off all the legal trading routes, a minor shift in political agreement could be disastrous. The confiscation of ship and contents in such circumstances was to be expected and the process of recovery—if recovery was possible—was slow and uncertain. Given the turbulence of the period, which moved between open fighting and acrimonious trade wars, it is remarkable that the trade routes and trade goods continued to flow with as little disruption as they did. Dr Fudge painstakingly documents from such records as survive the passage of products and ships and for thefirsttime shows how the transition from the medieval Hanseatic period to the Early M o d e m period of open seas in the Baltic and North Sea came about. H e shows the already specialised role fulfilled by some of the English east coast ports and the very different mercantile structures which had evolved to meet these needs. This helps explain the otherwise mysterious differences in their fortunes during the period. This is a very readable book which, while making no concessions to popularising, gives a lucid picture of mercantile experience in the North Sea in the period. The changing relationship between merchants and shippers is teased out of the partial evidence available. Fudge's account of the embassies which passed between the states, their composition, powers and diplomatic effectiveness, casts new light on international relations at the time. Structured chronologically, the book makes the sequence of events, which would otherwise be confusing, intelligible. I look forward to reading further work on this subject from Dr Fudge. Sybil M Jack History Department University of...